Felicity’s sister, Alice, was getting married. She and her partner lived in the UK, but they were both from Australia so they had chosen have their wedding at home. But they’d only arrive a week before their wedding day so Alice had been delegating to Felicity.
“It’s simple,” Alice had said. “You’re the only bridesmaid so you can wear what you like.”
“But what about the colour or style? Shouldn’t I try to compliment the theme and your dress? What about the flowers? And do I need to match the best man’s accessories?”
Alice had laughed.
“There is no theme. It’s just about us. We want the people we love to bring the pizzazz and the colour, so you can’t go wrong. It’s all about looking like you.”
“Really? I can’t go wrong?” Felicity doubted that. What did she look like anyway?
“No. You can’t go wrong. Just don’t choose anything boring or safe.”
“How about classic and elegant?”
“Semantics. You know it’s the same thing.”
“Yes. But it is me.”
Oh, how she was doomed to fail. It was Alice’s wedding, why couldn’t she tell her what to wear? A little prescription would make things so much easier, Felicity thought. She sighed.
“And no pastels, Flee! Actually choose a colour. You will not be the shrinking violet, ok?”
Great. Not a daunting task at all. Felicity felt like an embossed figure on paper next to Alice bursting off the page in every colour imaginable. Even in photos she seemed blurred while the focus favoured Alice. And that was how Felicity liked it.
“Don’t worry. You can’t go wrong,” Alice had concluded.
How do I go wrong? Let me count the ways.
It was natural to turn to Emma. They had only met a week or two before, outside Understudy’s Cafe, and while Felicity wouldn’t actually say they were friends yet, she was open to trusting her, and she liked her.
They drove the hour and a half to the city and hit the stores. It almost reminded Felicity of shopping with her bridesmaids for dresses, as Emma, who had no intention of buying anything, tried on dress after dress just for laughs, just because the dresses were beautiful and just because she could.
Felicity couldn’t seem to stop doing laps of the shop or to get her hands out her pockets. She gravitated to the natural shades. They had names like latte (how she’d love one), mushroom (sauté with garlic and butter, serve with poached eggs and hollandaise) and blushing nude (well, that was too easy!). She tried to tell herself she was looking at the styles and not the colours because of course she could have any style in the shop in any colour. But she felt very safe in that beige corner.
A moment of honesty. She had lost all perspective on her body, its proportions, and how to flatter it. She didn’t gain too much weight with her pregnancy, about 12 kg, but she hadn’t managed to lose much of it, or any of it really, since Brigit’s birth. And she hadn’t been trying hard enough, she knew, so it was her own fault. But she felt so lost. Did every new mum go through an identity crisis? Have no idea how to dress or how to be whatever they were supposed to be? Her good features had changed beyond recognition so that now her problem areas were better to emphasise. Her breasts were flat and gravity afflicted. Her waist looked ok from the front, but turn her side on and she was round from her ribs to her pubic bone. And nothing was firm. It was all soft and mushy, like dough that was too wet. She had not felt comfortable or presentable since before she fell pregnant.
Why did appearance matter so much anyway? Days like this just depressed her. Reminded her of the long quest to separate the idea that she needed to be beautiful to be lovable. It was easy to call out that lie, but so impossible to really believe how big a lie it was.
She loved beautiful things. She let her right hand run down the length of a satin dress and then drifted it towards some soft, floating chiffon.
“Ahem.”
Felicity jumped. Emma was surprised to see a guilty look on her face.
“Were you actually going to try something on?” Emma said.
“I should.” It was a resigned, dispirited response. God, I sound like such a loser. Can’t I just shake it off?
“Sorry, Emma. I just don’t know where to start. I’ve got no idea what Alice wants.”
“You mentioned that. More than once.”
“Sorry.”
They smiled at each other.
“Just a guess, but I think Alice might want whatever it is that you want.”
“Thank you, but that is absolutely no help at all.”
“If you didn’t seem so genuinely lost I’d want to slap you around the head,” Emma said.
Felicity stood there, watching, waiting. The dress she was holding hung in front of her like a shield but she hadn’t bothered to raise it. If only being slapped around the head would bring some sense and if only someone would slap her really, really hard!
“Ok. Remedial shopping. Get in that change room, get your gear off, and put on whatever I pass to you. Then come out and show me.” Emma pushed her in and swung the curtain across. The wooden rings tap danced along the curtain rod as they shuffled over.
“But I don’t even know where to start for sizes.” How embarrassing. And now she was whingeing. But she put down her handbag and took off her jacket.
“Consider that my problem,” Emma said. She passed two dresses through the curtain. “Try these.”
Felicity laughed. “I have a feeling the 22 will be a bit big.”
“That’s what I thought.” Emma sounded flippant. “Here try it in a 12.”
Felicity slipped it on. It was the kind of dress she would usually choose. A strapless, floor length, a-line with some scattered beading embellishments across the bodice.
“Show me.” Emma demanded.
Felicity stepped out. Emma marched her over to the mirror.
“My waist makes it a tight fit and I don’t have enough substance for the bust,” Felicity said.
“Yes. This dress is wrong. But now we know where to start.”
Felicity was back in the change room and in her knickers before she knew it. She was completely under Emma’s thumb and it was such a relief. Dresses flew in at her. Some she loved, some made her nervous, and some just made her laugh, but she suspected that was Emma’s point.
As she stood in front of the mirror in a dress that reminded her of the toilet roll covers that were also Barbie dresses crocheted out of tulle ribbon (how many of those had her grandma made in the 80’s?) Felicity realised she had laughed enough to relax.
“Well, we’re not getting this one,” she said.
“Party pooper. Indulge me and try these last two on.”
Felicity took them from her.
“Emma? What did you do before taking time out to be a mum?” Felicity had realised, mid change, that she hadn’t asked. In a way that was nice. Too often people began with the ‘what do you do’s?’ and sometimes friendships never took off. But now she was curious.
“I’m a psychologist.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
Of course she was. Hadn’t Felicity just been played by a master? But she had consented to it, in her own way.
“Are you going to charge me for today?” she joked.
“Maybe. Or you can just buy me coffee later.”
Felicity came out in the last dress Emma had given her. She didn’t know if she liked it. It was floor length, satin, with an asymmetric neckline and cap sleeves. The bodice was swept across and fell into a narrow a-line skirt. Tiny crystal beads followed the fall of the fabric and glittered along the hemline.
She caught herself in the mirror before she really looked. For a second she knew that the reflection was lovely.
Except the shop one was in a pastel pink. Even Felicity thought it would qualify as an icky pink bridesmaid dress if she bought it in that colour. She would have to decide on another colour.
“Emma? This is the one. But not this colour. I think this shade qualifies as an icky pink.”
“Coffee, then?”
“I thought I was banned from neutral colours,” Felicity said as she got dressed.
“You are. But let’s consider colour options over coffee.”
They sat in a cafe drinking coffee and indulging in glorious cupcakes. A swatch book lay open on the table between them. Felicity leant over to look but didn’t touch. She looked just like a little girl in a shop who held her own hands because her mum had told her not to touch anything. They were mostly silent.
“Have you always been this indecisive and cautious?” Emma asked when her coffee was almost all gone.
“No.” Felicity didn’t look up. “I used to be very intuitive and impulsive. I used to always just know.”
“What happened?”
Felicity went very quiet. She seemed to lengthen and become much stronger.
“Emma? I just need a friend now. If you try to be my therapist we’re done here.”
It was a fair boundary, but such a fine line. Especially when you care. Especially when you think you know what you see.
They broke the ice by ordering another coffee.
Felicity leant over the table again and stared at the swatches.
“Red. I want that dress in red.”
“Why red?” Emma had to ask. She had expected the colour decision to take longer than the style choice.
“Because I want some red shoes.” Felicity smiled.
Emma frowned. It made no sense and she felt like there was a whole other truth to Felicity that she couldn’t access, and damn it, she was curious.
“Red shoes?”
Felicity winked. “Every girl needs a pair of ruby slippers when she’s not in Kansas anymore.”
“...and the dress to go with them,” Emma concluded.
Under the table Felicity clicked her heels three times.
© Lorinda Tang 2013
“It’s simple,” Alice had said. “You’re the only bridesmaid so you can wear what you like.”
“But what about the colour or style? Shouldn’t I try to compliment the theme and your dress? What about the flowers? And do I need to match the best man’s accessories?”
Alice had laughed.
“There is no theme. It’s just about us. We want the people we love to bring the pizzazz and the colour, so you can’t go wrong. It’s all about looking like you.”
“Really? I can’t go wrong?” Felicity doubted that. What did she look like anyway?
“No. You can’t go wrong. Just don’t choose anything boring or safe.”
“How about classic and elegant?”
“Semantics. You know it’s the same thing.”
“Yes. But it is me.”
Oh, how she was doomed to fail. It was Alice’s wedding, why couldn’t she tell her what to wear? A little prescription would make things so much easier, Felicity thought. She sighed.
“And no pastels, Flee! Actually choose a colour. You will not be the shrinking violet, ok?”
Great. Not a daunting task at all. Felicity felt like an embossed figure on paper next to Alice bursting off the page in every colour imaginable. Even in photos she seemed blurred while the focus favoured Alice. And that was how Felicity liked it.
“Don’t worry. You can’t go wrong,” Alice had concluded.
How do I go wrong? Let me count the ways.
It was natural to turn to Emma. They had only met a week or two before, outside Understudy’s Cafe, and while Felicity wouldn’t actually say they were friends yet, she was open to trusting her, and she liked her.
They drove the hour and a half to the city and hit the stores. It almost reminded Felicity of shopping with her bridesmaids for dresses, as Emma, who had no intention of buying anything, tried on dress after dress just for laughs, just because the dresses were beautiful and just because she could.
Felicity couldn’t seem to stop doing laps of the shop or to get her hands out her pockets. She gravitated to the natural shades. They had names like latte (how she’d love one), mushroom (sauté with garlic and butter, serve with poached eggs and hollandaise) and blushing nude (well, that was too easy!). She tried to tell herself she was looking at the styles and not the colours because of course she could have any style in the shop in any colour. But she felt very safe in that beige corner.
A moment of honesty. She had lost all perspective on her body, its proportions, and how to flatter it. She didn’t gain too much weight with her pregnancy, about 12 kg, but she hadn’t managed to lose much of it, or any of it really, since Brigit’s birth. And she hadn’t been trying hard enough, she knew, so it was her own fault. But she felt so lost. Did every new mum go through an identity crisis? Have no idea how to dress or how to be whatever they were supposed to be? Her good features had changed beyond recognition so that now her problem areas were better to emphasise. Her breasts were flat and gravity afflicted. Her waist looked ok from the front, but turn her side on and she was round from her ribs to her pubic bone. And nothing was firm. It was all soft and mushy, like dough that was too wet. She had not felt comfortable or presentable since before she fell pregnant.
Why did appearance matter so much anyway? Days like this just depressed her. Reminded her of the long quest to separate the idea that she needed to be beautiful to be lovable. It was easy to call out that lie, but so impossible to really believe how big a lie it was.
She loved beautiful things. She let her right hand run down the length of a satin dress and then drifted it towards some soft, floating chiffon.
“Ahem.”
Felicity jumped. Emma was surprised to see a guilty look on her face.
“Were you actually going to try something on?” Emma said.
“I should.” It was a resigned, dispirited response. God, I sound like such a loser. Can’t I just shake it off?
“Sorry, Emma. I just don’t know where to start. I’ve got no idea what Alice wants.”
“You mentioned that. More than once.”
“Sorry.”
They smiled at each other.
“Just a guess, but I think Alice might want whatever it is that you want.”
“Thank you, but that is absolutely no help at all.”
“If you didn’t seem so genuinely lost I’d want to slap you around the head,” Emma said.
Felicity stood there, watching, waiting. The dress she was holding hung in front of her like a shield but she hadn’t bothered to raise it. If only being slapped around the head would bring some sense and if only someone would slap her really, really hard!
“Ok. Remedial shopping. Get in that change room, get your gear off, and put on whatever I pass to you. Then come out and show me.” Emma pushed her in and swung the curtain across. The wooden rings tap danced along the curtain rod as they shuffled over.
“But I don’t even know where to start for sizes.” How embarrassing. And now she was whingeing. But she put down her handbag and took off her jacket.
“Consider that my problem,” Emma said. She passed two dresses through the curtain. “Try these.”
Felicity laughed. “I have a feeling the 22 will be a bit big.”
“That’s what I thought.” Emma sounded flippant. “Here try it in a 12.”
Felicity slipped it on. It was the kind of dress she would usually choose. A strapless, floor length, a-line with some scattered beading embellishments across the bodice.
“Show me.” Emma demanded.
Felicity stepped out. Emma marched her over to the mirror.
“My waist makes it a tight fit and I don’t have enough substance for the bust,” Felicity said.
“Yes. This dress is wrong. But now we know where to start.”
Felicity was back in the change room and in her knickers before she knew it. She was completely under Emma’s thumb and it was such a relief. Dresses flew in at her. Some she loved, some made her nervous, and some just made her laugh, but she suspected that was Emma’s point.
As she stood in front of the mirror in a dress that reminded her of the toilet roll covers that were also Barbie dresses crocheted out of tulle ribbon (how many of those had her grandma made in the 80’s?) Felicity realised she had laughed enough to relax.
“Well, we’re not getting this one,” she said.
“Party pooper. Indulge me and try these last two on.”
Felicity took them from her.
“Emma? What did you do before taking time out to be a mum?” Felicity had realised, mid change, that she hadn’t asked. In a way that was nice. Too often people began with the ‘what do you do’s?’ and sometimes friendships never took off. But now she was curious.
“I’m a psychologist.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
Of course she was. Hadn’t Felicity just been played by a master? But she had consented to it, in her own way.
“Are you going to charge me for today?” she joked.
“Maybe. Or you can just buy me coffee later.”
Felicity came out in the last dress Emma had given her. She didn’t know if she liked it. It was floor length, satin, with an asymmetric neckline and cap sleeves. The bodice was swept across and fell into a narrow a-line skirt. Tiny crystal beads followed the fall of the fabric and glittered along the hemline.
She caught herself in the mirror before she really looked. For a second she knew that the reflection was lovely.
Except the shop one was in a pastel pink. Even Felicity thought it would qualify as an icky pink bridesmaid dress if she bought it in that colour. She would have to decide on another colour.
“Emma? This is the one. But not this colour. I think this shade qualifies as an icky pink.”
“Coffee, then?”
“I thought I was banned from neutral colours,” Felicity said as she got dressed.
“You are. But let’s consider colour options over coffee.”
They sat in a cafe drinking coffee and indulging in glorious cupcakes. A swatch book lay open on the table between them. Felicity leant over to look but didn’t touch. She looked just like a little girl in a shop who held her own hands because her mum had told her not to touch anything. They were mostly silent.
“Have you always been this indecisive and cautious?” Emma asked when her coffee was almost all gone.
“No.” Felicity didn’t look up. “I used to be very intuitive and impulsive. I used to always just know.”
“What happened?”
Felicity went very quiet. She seemed to lengthen and become much stronger.
“Emma? I just need a friend now. If you try to be my therapist we’re done here.”
It was a fair boundary, but such a fine line. Especially when you care. Especially when you think you know what you see.
They broke the ice by ordering another coffee.
Felicity leant over the table again and stared at the swatches.
“Red. I want that dress in red.”
“Why red?” Emma had to ask. She had expected the colour decision to take longer than the style choice.
“Because I want some red shoes.” Felicity smiled.
Emma frowned. It made no sense and she felt like there was a whole other truth to Felicity that she couldn’t access, and damn it, she was curious.
“Red shoes?”
Felicity winked. “Every girl needs a pair of ruby slippers when she’s not in Kansas anymore.”
“...and the dress to go with them,” Emma concluded.
Under the table Felicity clicked her heels three times.
© Lorinda Tang 2013
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